


Every time he closed his eyes

by DAZzle_10



Series: You belong with me [8]
Category: Rugby RPF, Rugby Union RPF
Genre: Communication, M/M, World Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-23 21:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAZzle_10/pseuds/DAZzle_10
Summary: Taking a deep, calming breath, Owen forces a nod of acceptance in full awareness that Dylan can’t see the gesture. He needs it for himself, to gain a touch more composure when it all seems to be slipping away from him so quicklyDoubts that Dylan has been keeping locked in his head come to the surface as Owen struggles with World Cup selection anxiety and guilt.





	Every time he closed his eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Well, then... I feel guilty for how much I doubted that team, I have to say - particularly Heinz (though I still disagree with the Vice Captaincy thing) - and Francis... is growing on me. And George is now maybe a scrum-half? Got to say I'm more than little excited for that one - not, obviously, that I want us to need him there. Just... y'know...
> 
> Aaanyway, I am officially ahead on my work schedule for the holidays (woo!) and I have a survey if anyone wants to fill that in/share the link...? It's for an EPQ - extended project qualification - that I'm doing at my sixth form. You don't need to be directly involved in sport to answer it, or anything like that (though I do need your email to protect your right to withdraw, so...). (So, I forgot to actually put the link on originally, so: https://forms.gle/SD6d96LxqJooJrnr9 )
> 
> And I'm also addicted to Chicago PD. I blame YouTube. It's very much all their fault. Them and Jesse Lee Soffer. Yes. Them. My inability to control how easily I get addicted to shows and the like has nothing to do with it.
> 
> But on with the fic! (So much for getting more regular chapters of AANIWIN - which is a longer acronym than I somehow expected it to be...?)

As stupid – as tactless, as unnecessary – as it is, the first thing Owen does on getting back to his room after his meeting with Eddie is call Dylan. While the phone rings, he paces nervously, glad that his roommate – a roommate who could never replace Dylan – isn’t here to see him right now, teeth cutting harshly into his lower lip and one hand alternating between rubbing at the back of his neck and tugging his head down to contemplate the floor.

“_Hello_,” Dylan’s voice fills his ear. “_I can’t take your call –_”

Hanging up with an anxiously frustrated breath, Owen dials his boyfriend’s number again and waits, bouncing a little on his toes. He doesn’t normally work himself up so much about this sort of thing, but this doesn’t normally happen in the first place, and he knows that he hasn’t been at his best when he needed to be, and George has been performing brilliantly, and with Manu and Henry in the side, and with his continuing difficulties with composure –

“Sorry,” Dylan pants out, a little breathless. “I couldn’t find my phone.”

“That’s fine,” Owen bites out as he halts abruptly and lifts his hand to disrupt his hair instead, a little more impatiently than he’d like; he didn’t plan on letting Dylan know just how worried he is about this. “I – um – I’m not in the team.”

“Hmm…?” Dylan murmurs distractedly. “Sorry, I didn’t hear that. I’m trying to help fix Gabe’s computer?”

Taking a deep, calming breath, Owen forces a nod of acceptance in full awareness that Dylan can’t see the gesture. He needs it for himself, to gain a touch more composure when it all seems to be slipping away from him so quickly.

“Right,” he manages, his throat constricting in despite his best efforts. “I – I just had my meeting. With Eddie.”

This inability to control his slide of emotions is exactly why he isn’t fit to be Captain, isn’t fit to be Fly-half. As a Back, in charge of marshalling the team in more ways than one, he can’t afford this. As much as he hates it, as much as he normally avoids it, he’s seen what people have been saying about him. He’s kept more of an eye on the news since everything came out about him and Dylan, and it hasn’t done his shadowing insecurities any good.

“Oh – your selection one,” Dylan’s voice fills with recognition for a second. “Well, you wouldn’t be calling if it was what you wanted, so… On the bench?”

“No,” Owen croaks out, and can’t force any more words out besides that.

“At Inside Centre?”

A wordless negative, and Dylan falls silent for a second, Owen squeezing his eyes tightly shut. He knows calling Dylan about this is insensitive, when Dylan’s still struggling with injury, still working desperately to be fit even though they both know that boat has almost definitely sailed.

“He’s resting you,” Dylan concludes, and Owen wishes it were that easy. “Nothing wrong with that, love. You’re important; he doesn’t want you injured before –”

“What if that’s not it?” Owen whispers, unable to raise his voice any further as he admits his fears aloud.

“…What do you mean?” Dylan’s audibly confused.

Swallowing, Owen licks his lips, realising only then that he’s started pacing again. Forcefully, he stills. He’s overreacting, he knows, but this is the World Cup, and he just can’t afford to miss out on it; he wants, more than anything, to play in it – and win it – and these doubts have been growing in the back of his mind since the Scotland game, though he’s been able to force them away without much effort until… this.

“What if he – I mean, I was shit in our last game, and my kicking’s been off, I still haven’t sorted out my composure, I –”

“You think he’d drop you,” Dylan’s voice is flat, unimpressed, “In a World Cup warm-up match? You?”

“I just –”

“Owen, you’re his first choice Fly-half – the best in England, no matter what the papers have to say about Cipriani. Yes, you occasionally have temper difficulties, but so does everyone. So do – did – I.”

Dylan takes a deep breath, and Owen jumps in.

“But Fordy is practically the only reason Tigers weren’t relegated, and I can’t have temper difficulties at _Fly-half_. Fordy doesn’t, Cips doesn’t. What if he thinks I can’t handle the pressure? What if he thinks George can – he’s Captain this weekend, Dyl, I –”

“Owen, you’re being completely irrational, and I think you know it.”

“But what if I’m _not_?” Owen bursts out, dragging his voice down to a quieter level to continue as he hopes that none of his teammates heard. “Dyl, I just – What if I’m not?”

His voice drops more than he’d like, down to a whisper by the end, and Dylan sighs.

“Alright. So what if you’re not?” Dylan’s tone remains brisk, unsympathetic, but relief courses through Owen anyway. “I’ve seen how hard you work. I’ve seen what you can do in a bad patch. So has Eddie. So has Ford. So has everyone. You just keep doing that, like you _always _do, and trust me, Owen, you’ll get there. You’ve got nothing holding you back; there’s absolutely _no _reason for you to not throw everything at this and want it more than anything, is there?”

“No…?” Owen frowns. “Why would there be?”

For a moment, Dylan is silent, and when he speaks again, there’s an almost defeated note to his words.

“Yeah…” he blows out a breath. “Why would there be?”

That’s it. Owen’s own worries are parked right there, because clearly, there’s something going on with Dylan that he doesn’t know about. At the end of the day, Dylan’s the one with the injury, who’s struggling to get himself fit for Saints, never mind England, with, after all of it, little more of a conclusive diagnosis than there had been when it first happened, back in December.

“What’s wrong?” he demands, and has to soften his tone before continuing. “Dyl, is there something…?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dylan waves it off, dismissing the concern, and Owen can picture the falsely casual shrug he’d get in person.

“Bit late for that,” he jokes carefully. “You can tell me, yeah? I’m listening.”

“Since when were you one for talking?” Dylan huffs a laugh, though it’s a little wet, and they both know that Owen has changed that part of his mindset a lot over the last seven or eight months – because of Dylan. “I… There’s just something that’s been weighing on my mind. For a long time, now, actually. Sometimes… I just get hit by how much – when we’re both together, and there’s no rush for either of us to get back home for training or anything. I just get hit by how much I want it to stay that way.”

Owen listens without attempting speech of his own, vaguely conscious of the tightening of his chest as Dylan keeps talking, words stringing into sentences, linked together like a confession as they tumble from his lips.

“And I said to you – once I retire. And I keep telling myself the same thing. I just – If that’s going to be in a year, two years, three, more… I don’t know how I’d keep waiting that long. Just to be able to wake up in the morning with you. And I think I _would_ be fine.”

Opening his mouth, Owen sucks in a breath, but his ability to talk has deserted him, and Dylan keeps talking.

“But this injury, I – Well, it just keeps weighing on my mind. Is it worth it to keep trying to get it sorted when getting it sorted means losing you again? I mean, my chances of getting to the World Cup have pretty much sailed.”

Finally, Owen finds his voice – a shaky, small voice, but a voice all the same.

“Dyl –”

“I’m not ready to retire, Owen,” Dylan tells him hoarsely. “Not if I can fix my knee. But I – I _can’t_ put my full effort into recovery when our alarm in the morning and you’re lying across my chest, or when you come home from your training, and you’re tired and you just want to sit on the couch and watch sport for a bit – and cuddle. With me. Or – or when I get to sit in the stands and watch you win, then take care of you when you’re hungover as fuck because your teammates got you pissed, or when Ronnie needs a walk and you pretend you can’t be bothered to do it so that I’ll get ready to go instead, and then, last minute, you’ll _decide_ to come along as well.”

Owen’s cheeks flush a little at that, because yes, maybe he _does_ do that sometimes. For several seconds, he struggles to speak, words blocked by the thick lump in his airways and by the clumsiness of his tongue. Never mind that he has no idea _what_ to say to that, he needs to find something.

“I love you,” he comes up with eventually: what seems like the best place to start. “I don’t want you to throw away your career for me.”

“That’s the thing,” Dylan sighs, and even that single exhale seems pessimistic. “I’m _thirty-three_. How much of a career do I have anyway? It’s not like I have so much left to do. I’ve probably lost my England spot; my performances are going to be slipping downhill from now on – if they weren’t already. Sometimes, it just feels like what I’ve got left isn’t worth missing out on so much with you. I… It really hit home at the end of last season, I guess partially because Hask retired. And now Chris has dropped his World Cup dreams for his family, and I just… I’m not ready to leave rugby behind, but if I can’t play rugby anyway… I sometimes think I’d rather watch you play and love what you’re doing, and be able to spend time with you away from it all, just being a normal couple, than keep chasing some impossible dream.”

As hard as he tries, Owen cannot think of anything to say to that. For several seconds, his lips work soundlessly, no words coming to him, and finally, Dylan continues.

“I don’t expect you to have an answer,” the older man assures him. “I don’t have an answer, and it’s my own future, entirely my choice to make; why should you? I just… That’s where I am. That’s why I think you’re going to be fine. Because you’ve got everything to work for and nothing to lose.”

“Owen.”

Reaching out, Owen takes the offered hand with a short nod, so occupied by thoughts of the game – he spent warm-up with Fordy, and he can only hope his friend and the rest of his teammates are ready for this – that it takes several seconds for him to register exactly whose hand he’s shaking.

“Alright?” he offers a smile, and Daniel Craig returns it with a nod of his own.

“I just wanted to say – you’re probably horribly tired of hearing this by now, but I haven’t seen you in a while…”

Owen knows where this is going, but he forces himself to wait patiently anyway as Craig’s smile turns apologetic; clearly, he hasn’t hidden his recognition of the situation well enough.

“I’ve got a huge amount of respect for you and Dylan, and you have my full support,” comes the message that Owen fully expected to hear.

“Thank you,” he replies all the same, trying to inject his sincerity into the well-worn words. “It’s good to hear that – Dyl will be glad to know.”

That apparently over with, Craig sits down, and Owen slumps a little as he settles back into his own seat, gaining a pat on the back from Henry and a sympathetic nudge from Jamie. It’s not that he dislikes knowing that he’s accepted; it’s a relief, every time, like a little extra weight has been lifted from his shoulders. At the same time, it seems to dominate so many of his interactions, as though his life now revolves around being gay, rather than, say, a rugby player with a World Cup fast approaching.

“Faz,” Jamie leans in, voice dropping to a murmur. “I’ve been meaning to say – is everything alright? You’ve been a bit… off, lately? Since Monday?”

“Hmm?” Owen glances at him, blinking.

“And Dyls was worried he’d said something.”

That’s… a surprise. For several seconds, Owen can only stare at his friend, trying to wrap his head around the idea that Dylan could have told Jamie that he was concerned about upsetting _Owen_.

“He… was?” he squints, trying to convey his confusion.

“He texted,” Jamie offers by way of explanation, as though being in contact with a rival from another club, Owen’s boyfriend or not, over text about Owen’s well-being could ever be a suitable explanation in and of itself. “Said you called, and he wasn’t as sympathetic as he should have been about something.”

“…Oh.”

Slowly, Owen sits back.

“No, he was fine,” he assures after a moment to consider this news. “It was… helpful.”

It got him into a better place about being left out, at any rate – gave him the kick up the arse he needed – and certainly put things into perspective. Then again, that very perspective shift is the real source of his troubles lately.

Briefly, he hesitates, biting his lip as he wonders whether or not to admit the real source of his recent distraction. Is it a breach of Dylan’s privacy? Glancing at Jamie, he sucks in a deep breath and grimaces; Jamie won’t tell anyone, and if Dylan trusts him enough to go chasing after Owen through him…

“It’s just… He’s been talking about, um…” he checks around to make sure that no one else is listening, then leans in and lowers his voice. “Retirement. Because of me.”

“Because of _you_?”

It’s Jamie’s turn to squint, voice slightly too loud for Owen’s liking as his eyebrows shoot upwards.

“Well…” Owen shrugs, a little uncomfortable. “He’s got his knee problems, and he said he’s struggling to keep his mind completely on recovery, because he keeps thinking that maybe… Maybe it’d be better if he just let it lie – retired so we could live together.”

Jamie falls silent. Anxious, Owen waits as his clubmate’s arms lift to fold across Jamie’s broad chest, the Hooker obviously considering what Owen’s told him closely. All the while, Owen’s knee bounces a little, his awareness of the team running out distracted at best.

“What bothers you most about that?” Jamie asks finally, brow creasing as he glances over at Owen.

“I –”

Owen stops, aware that the anthems are about to start, and listens impatiently to both, singing half-heartedly along to ‘God Save the Queen’. It doesn’t have the same impact when he’s not down there, not about to represent his country – the country he loves, despite the shambles it has fallen into lately.

“I don’t want to be the reason he retires,” he tells Jamie as soon as they’re settled back into their seats. “He said he’s not ready to retire. He just… He can’t focus on recovery, and he keeps thinking that maybe another year, two years, whatever, isn’t worth it, but…”

Swallowing to fight down the blockage in his airways, Owen lifts one shoulder in a discomforted shrug and glances away for a beat before returning his attention to Jamie.

“I get it,” he admits. “I hate not being able to live together, not seeing each other for – for weeks, but… I don’t want him to give up so much for that.”

Slowly, Jamie nods.

“It’s his choice,” come the sage words. “At the end of the day, what he wants to do is up to him. You can offer things to make it easier one way or another, but he has to run with what he thinks will make him happier – and you’ve got to accept it.”

Apparently satisfied with his contribution, Jamie turns away to the pitch, and after a second’s contemplation, Owen follows his example.

The first chance Owen gets after the announcement, he separates himself from his teammates, ducking away from them with his phone to call the one person who matters right now. He’s spent the last five minutes staring at the same list of names, scanning for one he’d already known wouldn’t be there, had already seen multiple times wasn’t there, both in previous passes and in the video they showed, and yet… couldn’t let go of. The ‘(c)’ next to his name is branded into his retinae; as he closes his eyes on the tears that he doesn’t deserve to cry, can’t even explain the existence of, it flares up once more, red and accusing.

“Owen,” Dylan greets him almost tiredly, and all the words Owen had prepared, all the eloquent apologies and promises to think of him – it all flies out of the window.

“Dyl,” he croaks instead, lifting his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m so, so –”

“You’d better not be about to apologise.”

Immediately, Owen cuts himself off, biting his lip and bouncing helplessly on the balls of his feet as he searches for something – anything – else to say.

“I –” Dylan stops, pausing briefly as he seems to struggle with what he wants to tell Owen. “It was coming. I knew I wouldn’t be in; you knew I wouldn’t be in. All that’s different is the rest of the world knows, now.”

Owen can only manage a wordless, strangled, noise of affirmation.

“I thought I’d be fine,” Dylan admits after a small stretch of quiet. “I thought – I’m proud of you, you know that? You’ve worked hard. I want to be there with you, I want –”

Again, Dylan bites down on his words, leaving Owen hanging as his eyes sting more viciously.

“But I’m proud of you,” Dylan continues, more softly now. “I am. I did what I could, and it wasn’t enough. I have to accept that. You… You go on and win that World Cup, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Owen chokes out, throat squeezing in by the second. “…I love you.”

“Love you too…” Dylan sighs. “Go back to the team, now.”

He hangs up, cutting off any chance Owen might have had to offer anything else – not that Owen had anything to give. There’s nothing to be said about this; Dylan’s knee isn’t better, Owen is the Captain Eddie wants, and the team has moved on from Dylan’s leadership, so seamlessly that Owen almost hates himself for it.

_Dylan deserves better than this_, Owen thinks as he lowers his phone.

“Faz?”

It’s Billy who appears, brow creased in concern, and once his heart is back to a steady rhythm, Owen twists to offer his clubmate a smile that he knows is more watery than he intended.

“You alright?”

Briefly, Owen glances down at the device in his hand, then forces a stronger smile to his face and nods jerkily.

“Yeah,” he lifts an arm to drag it swiftly over his eyes. “Just, ah… Just talking to Dyl.”

“Oh,” Billy’s face falls into contrition, just as it always does when Owen mentions his boyfriend, his relationship, anything – but the expression shifts into more comfortable sympathy after a second. “I guess that must be… tough.”

“Yeah,” Owen repeats, choking slightly on a wet huff of bitterly amused breath. “Yeah, um… Should be him. With the…”

He waves his hand vaguely, tracing a ‘C’ in the air almost unconsciously, then drops his arm and shrugs.

“You’ve worked hard,” Billy nudges him. “You deserve it.”

“And so does he.”

Blowing out a gradual breath, Owen shakes his head.

“I’m proud,” he acknowledges. “I just – I want it to be because I’ve earned it, not because he’s lost it.”

“It’s both,” Billy shrugs, the arm that drops around Owen’s shoulders warm as it tugs Owen in for a short but firm embrace. “It was always going to be both. That’s how it works. Now we have to go and win this.”

It’s the truth. Owen knows it is.

Closing his eyes, he manages a nod as he drops his phone into his pocket.

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, an affirmation of everything that Bill has just said. “Now we have to go and win this.”


End file.
